And So It Ends
by FanofBellaandEdward
Summary: While Eren awaits his fate after the majority of the titans are wiped out, he makes an unsettling discovery. The court's decision is the last thing on his mind now as he tries to figure out what to do with his new situation. Birthday fic; Eren's pov; established slash; age difference; MPreg; more warnings in chapter
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This is a birthday fic for Cazzylove. Happy birthday, sweetie! (And yes, as you can see, I couldn't keep it to a oneshot *coughs*)**

 **This is the first part of the story. The next one will be up next week normally ^^**

 **Warnings: set a few years in the future, so I'm glossing over some events in the manga; established slash but in secret; age difference; Eren's pov; angst; MPreg (will be explained later how that happens); foul language; not completely following the manga as I'm not completely up to date yet**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Attack on Titan. Hajime Isayama owns it.**

 **I hope you'll like it!**

* * *

 _ **Part 1**_

The sharp sound of steam sizzling cut through the air and some birds nearby quietened down for a moment before they started their furious chattering once more. Wind made the leaves rustle and some young trees swayed gently with the force. Above the sun was shining brightly, casting its warm rays on the earth.

"That the last one?" Jean grunted, bringing his blades back down. He rubbed over his scarred left cheek with his sleeve.

"Looks like it," Mikasa answered blandly and jumped down from the dead titan's body before it completely evaporated. She chucked the dull blades to the ground and wrapped her red scarf – the edges frayed by now – tighter around her neck.

"At least in this perimeter," Hange muttered and stretched out their arms, yawning widely. "But it's now safer than it has been in centuries! We can deal with the remaining titans when they pop up." They gnawed thoughtfully on their lower lip and scratched the back of their head. "Although, taking into account the reports from the other groups, it appears that only around fifty titans are still roaming around. They are no bigger than sixteen feet at most, though, so no biggie!"

They received a couple of incredulous looks, but as always they didn't seem to take notice of them, clutching instead at their assistant's arm to blabber about an easier way to get rid of the remaining titans in one swoop.

"Back to the walls?" Captain Levi inquired flatly and Commander Erwin nodded.

Grim, blue eyes glanced quickly at the brunette standing a few feet away from the two men. "The Court has summoned us." He raised his remaining arm and called out, "Everyone, back to your horses! We'll return to the walls in fifteen minutes!"

"Do you think they'll have more of that delicious meat at dinner?" Sasha wondered, already salivating at the thought of getting her hands on the food. Her fingers – her right pink missing due to a close call with a titan a year ago – twitched rapidly in a parody of grabbing food.

Since the Survey Corps had managed to get rid of the majority of the titans near the walls, the food resources had nearly tripled. While food was still put under certain restrictions, they did receive bigger portions. Of course, for Sasha no portion was big enough to still her ravenous hunger.

"Kelly said they're receiving more meat this week, so we might be in luck tonight!" Connie crowed and fist pumped the air.

"You eat more than your share, Blouse, and I'll personally tie you up," Jean threatened and pulled himself up on his horse.

Ever the mature one, Sasha stuck out her tongue and then ran after Connie to get on her own horse.

"Eren?" Mikasa popped up next to him; her black eyebrows furrowed together in concern. "You okay?"

He gave her a quick smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Stop worrying, Mikasa," he said dismissively and turned around to go back to his own horse. Today there had been no need for him to join the attack; the three titans had all been no bigger than ten feet and it had been decided that Eren's Titan would only be used in the case of titans reaching more than ninety-eight feet.

Since they had got rid of the Ape Titan two years ago, not many titans even reached the height of twenty-five feet anymore. None of them complained about that, naturally. The more titans they got rid of easily, the quicker humanity could finally tear down the walls and spread out again over the earth. Already there were more villages popping up just outside the walls, but the majority of the people still remained behind the walls out of precaution.

Eren's dream to discover the world was getting closer with each titan they slew.

And yet it was also getting further out of his reach with each new summon of the Court. After finally reaching the basement and subsequently discovering what his father had hidden there, the Survey Corps had made it their sole mission to wipe out all the titans. The scouting part was left in the hands of the new Scouting Corps, led by the old man Pixis. They drew maps of the places they visited and the moment they encountered titans, they retreated and handed over the coordinates of the large beings to the Survey Corps. As soon as the titans in that area were wiped out, the Scouting Corps continued their mission.

So far they had already covered a perimeter of more than three hundred kilometres – not that large when taking into consideration how big the earth probably was, but it was definitely a lot more than humanity had ever dared to hope to regain. The further they travelled, the less titans they encountered. It made sense of course; their prey were humans, so they would not remain in places completely barren of people.

Each time the Survey Corps returned, Captain Levi, Squad Leader Hange and Commander Erwin were summoned to the Court where they had to explain their findings. With each successful mission, the members of the Court grew more excited – but they also grew more cautious towards Eren.

Eren hadn't had any dealing with the Court so far, but Captain Levi had bluntly told him four months ago that the Court was trying to decide his fate: let him live or have him executed. The man they called Humanity's Strongest hadn't beaten around the bush; there were more and more voices rising up demanding Eren to be executed once the final titan was slain. They didn't want anything related to the titans to remain alive – not even a titan shifter who was on humanity's side.

Eren's greatest wish of freeing humanity from the titans would at the same time be his death sentence. Sometimes it was hard to decide who was cruellest: the titans who ate people mindlessly or humanity who mercilessly got rid of anything they deemed unworthy.

For four months already Eren walked around with the knowledge that each mission could be his last one. He hadn't told Mikasa or Armin yet; he knew he should tell them, but every time he found himself alone with them, he couldn't bring himself to confess. Something in him held him back every time; a lump blocking his throat.

Time was slowly running out, though, and they deserved to know what would happen to him. At the same time he didn't dare to imagine how Mikasa would react. It wasn't that farfetched to imagine that she would plot to murder the entire Court if that meant Eren would stay alive. He couldn't let her do that. He couldn't let her ruin her life, let her be branded as a murderer, just so he could stay alive. But how on earth would he confess to his friends without them trying to rescue him?

He climbed on his horse, bending slightly forwards as he sank down on the saddle to grab the reigns and grimaced when his waistband dug into his stomach. Right, he still hadn't figured out why …

"Ready to go, Yeager?" Captain Levi appeared next to him; his grey eyes appraising him carefully.

"Yes, sir!" Eren immediately straightened his back, ignoring how the sun seemed intent on burning through his jacket.

The captain quirked an eyebrow. "I expect you at nine o'clock sharp tonight, Yeager. There is a pile of documents as tall as our four-eyed lunatic over there that needs to be send off. Nine o'clock sharp and not a second later," he barked and then urged his horse to go to the front where the commander was already waiting.

"Yes, Captain Levi," Eren muttered and took a deep breath; his stomach turning upside down.

A pile of documents, right.

* * *

"I heard there was some commotion during dinner," the older man remarked idly as he deftly unbuttoned his pristine white shirt.

Eren stiffened and signed the last report with a less steady hand. "What kind of commotion, sir?" he asked flatly, placing the report on top of the pile.

The sun had made place for its counterpart the moon and it cast its milky white rays over the tidy desk. The sky was clear, devoid of any clouds, promising a chilly night.

"The kind where a certain someone apparently demanded that his meat be as rare as possible to the point where it was practically raw as fuck and the cook refused." A slim, dark eyebrow rose up in incredulity. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this?"

Eren huffed and turned around to face his superior, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I was just in the mood for rare meat; it's not that weird," he said tersely and frowned. He had been ready to punch the cook, because the dickhead kept insisting the meat needed to be roasted until Mikasa had stepped in. He had received his rare meat barely ten minutes later.

"I thought you usually had your meat well done?" Levi – he wasn't his captain in this particular situation – questioned and sat down on the thin mattress.

"What does it matter? Tastes can change, you know," Eren pointed out and stood up, stretching his arms.

Levi smirked and his eyes glinted. "I know," he muttered, amused at something Eren didn't understand. The man beckoned him closer. "Come here; we still have a few hours left before you have to return to your room."

A bit thrown off at the direction the conversation had gone, Eren wandered over to the bed where Levi was waiting, leaning back on his hands. His shirt was open, revealing his sculpted chest; it never failed to attract Eren's attention, even after seeing the other man naked many times before. The dark haired man was practically made up entirely out of firm muscles; there was not a soft spot to be found on him.

With an almost inaudible huff, Levi pulled him closer by his hips until he was standing between spread legs. "I said we still have a few hours, but fuck, that doesn't mean you have to be as slow as a fucking snail," he sneered and started unbuttoning Eren's shirt, the latter shivering when calloused fingertips fleetingly brushed across his skin.

"Many apologies, sir," Eren retorted snarky and fiddled with Levi's popped up collar.

"You're getting fucking cheeky, Yeager," Levi remarked, flicking his side before he continued unbuttoning his shirt. When he was almost done, he suddenly paused. "The fuck is this?" Grey eyes stared incredulously at Eren's stomach.

Fuck! He had forgotten about that in his rush to be on time in Levi's office.

"Nothing," Eren muttered and took a step back, shame filling him as he tried futile to cover up his stomach.

"Nothing? If I didn't watch you train every day, I'd say you were slacking off," Levi said snidely and he narrowed his eyes. "What's going on, Eren?"

"No-not sure, okay?" Eren bit out, glowering at the other man. "It's – I've noticed it a few weeks ago, but it won't go away."

He had even increased the amount of training he did in an effort to get rid of it; it didn't work. If anything, it only made him nauseous at the end and the feeling wouldn't dissipate for more than an hour. It worried him immensely, because he had never had this problem before. It wasn't like he had started to stuff himself full with food either; the only change in his diet was his most recent craving for rare meat.

Levi furrowed his eyebrows. "Have you told someone about this?" he questioned warily; eyes flickering towards Eren's stomach, which was since a month no longer flat.

"No," Eren muttered, looking away. Who would he tell? What exactly would he tell them? That he didn't manage to get rid of the extra fat around his stomach that had appeared with no apparent cause?

"So you've been gaining weight inexplicably, but you didn't think to let yourself be examined?" the dark haired man asked incredulously and the look in his eyes was clear enough to let Eren know that the man thought he was a stupid idiot.

"Who would I ask?" Eren asked fed up and threw his hands up.

"Who would you – for fuck's sake, who does your regular examinations?" Levi snapped impatiently. "You should have gone to Hange!"

"I didn't want to bother them with it, okay!" Eren glared at the floor; one of the cleanest in the entire building.

"You'd think that after all those years you'd actually grown a fucking brain," Levi muttered darkly and stood up, buttoning up his shirt again.

The playful mood was entirely gone now.

"Button up," Levi ordered curtly. "We're going to Hange now."

"What? No, it's late now!" Eren protested, though he started buttoning his shirt close again. Clearly nothing was going to happen tonight, so there was no point in remaining half naked. "I'll see the squad leader tomorrow."

He nearly lost his balance when Levi gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him harshly down, glaring at him. "You're going to be examined now. End of story," he hissed and roughly pushed him back. "Come on now!"

Rubbing frustrated over his face, Eren cast a glance at the bed – where the sheets were faintly wrinkled – and uttered a soft curse, snatching his jacket from the chair. He followed Levi out of the room, stuffing his hands into his pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling.

This was so not how he had envisioned the evening to go.

* * *

"So despite the rigorous training our beloved Captain puts you through, you still gained weight, hm?" Hange muttered, pulling off the cap of their pen with their teeth as they grappled around their desk to find a blank piece of paper.

Eren saw Levi's face contorting in disgust, but the man remained silent, choosing to lean against the wall next to the closed door with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Eren himself had been pushed onto a chair in front of the scientist and he fidgeted slightly. Despite the years of knowing them and interacting with them on almost a daily basis, he still wasn't completely comfortable around Hange. Especially not when they slipped into their scientist mode; that usually meant a lot of uncomfortable and often painful experiments for him. He was fairly certain he would like them if they weren't his superior and weren't far too fascinated with how many parts of his body could be cut off before he wouldn't regenerate anymore.

So far they had refrained from actually cutting off parts except for when he was stuck inside his titan form.

"How long has this been going on?" they asked, looking at him expectantly while the pen hovered right above the scrap of paper they had managed to unearth from the dangerously teetering pile on the desk.

"Eh, not sure." Eren shrugged uncomfortably, picking at the nail of his pinkie. "I think around a month ago or so? At least that's when I started to notice it."

"Hm, anything else out of the ordinary?"

He hesitated briefly, but he could feel eyes drilling into the back of his head and he replied resigned, "I've – recently I've started to crave rare meat. And I can't train for long or too hard or else I get nauseous."

"Well, training for too long would have a lot of people become nauseous," they amended, hastily scribbling his answers down.

He shook his head, biting his lip. "No, this is different. I felt nauseous at the beginning when I wasn't used yet to the training, but that nausea always disappeared fast. This one takes hours before it finally disappears completely."

"Well, this is interesting," they mumbled and frowned at the paper. They placed it on the table and clapped in their hands. "All right, first off, I'm going to take a blood sample!"

"You think his blood is going to tell you why he's gaining weight?" Levi questioned sceptically.

"You never know," they muttered, rummaging through one of the drawers. They let out a triumphant sound when they found an unused needle. "It could be some kind of disease and then there might be traces of it in his blood."

"He's a shifter," Levi stated bluntly. "Wouldn't his titan genes fuck with possible diseases?"

Hange hummed. "Maybe, maybe not. Let's find out, shall we?" They grabbed three empty vials and scuttled their way back to Eren, swiping a bottle of disinfectant and some cotton balls off a shelf. They squatted down on a wooden chair in front of him. "Give me your arm, Eren," they said cheerfully, pressing a cotton ball against the upended bottle so that the liquid would be absorbed by it.

Nose twitching at the sharp smell of the disinfectant, Eren offered his right arm, rolling his sleeve up.

Humming, Hange grabbed his arm firmly and dabbed the soaked cotton ball in the hollow of his elbow. The cotton was thrown carelessly on the table behind them – eliciting an annoyed hiss from the Captain – and they tapped a particular spot in the hollow of his elbow firmly. The needle punctured his skin and Eren pursed his lips, watching how the first vial was filled with his blood. The second vial was quickly exchanged with the first full one and the third one followed soon afterwards.

"There! That's done," Hange declared perkily and pressed a clean cotton ball against his skin. "Hold it there while I put these vials away."

Eren raised his eyebrows and removed the cotton as soon as they turned their back. His titan healing had already kicked in and there wasn't any trace left of the needle mark; why Hange still insisted on pressing cotton against it while they knew his healing kicked in as soon as the needle was removed remained a mystery to him.

"Now, let me check your stomach," Hange muttered, turning back around. "Remove your shirt, Eren."

He hung his shirt over the back of his chair and nearly jumped three feet in the air when cold fingers started pressing into his stomach.

"Does it hurt when I press here?" they inquired, nearly jabbing him.

"No," he grunted, resisting the urge to squirm away from the bony fingers.

"Are you nauseous now?"

He shook his head, wincing at another harsh jab in his side.

"Hm, your stomach doesn't feel abnormal," Hange mumbled and furrowed their eyebrows. "Let me take my stethoscope."

Levi snorted – the sound sharp and derisive in the room. "You think you can hear it if something is wrong with Yeager?" He sounded incredulously and Eren couldn't exactly blame him for that.

"I can try, right?" They shrugged their shoulders, plucking their stethoscope off a peg. "I'll analyse his blood tonight." They put the earbuds of the stethoscope in their ears and without warning pressed the cold metal against his stomach.

Eren flinched at the sudden cold sensation, but remained still, trying not to move too much. He didn't know what Hange thought they would discover by listening to his stomach – he certainly had never seen his father use his stethoscope in this manner – but at the same time there was no harm done in them examining him this way.

"And?" Levi broke the silence; impatience clearly ringing through his voice.

Hange frowned, pushing the metal end of the stethoscope right underneath Eren's bellybutton. "I'm picking up something interesting, but …" they trailed off, narrowing their eyes.

"Hange-san?" Eren asked uncertainly; hands gripping the sides of his seat.

They blinked and pulled back, offering him an absentminded smile. "I'll need to do some research on your blood to be certain," they announced, removing the earbuds. They dropped the stethoscope on the desk and grabbed the vials.

"So you know what's wrong with him?" Levi stepped forwards; his eyes intense.

Hange pursed their lips together, tapping their fingers erratically against the table while leaning against it. "Not sure," they admitted begrudgingly. "That's why I need to do some tests. I'll let you know when I'm sure. Now shoo! I can't have you hovering around me while I'm doing my research!"

Levi glared at them, but his eyes quickly shifted towards Eren, who hastily pulled on his shirt again.

"Come on, Yeager," Levi grunted and turned around. "I'll escort you to your room. It's getting late."

"Yes, sir," Eren muttered and snatched his jacket from the chair, hurrying after his superior as they left a softy muttering Hange behind.

They were almost in the corridor leading to Eren's room when Levi suddenly whirled around and gave him such a cold look that it made the younger man automatically freeze.

"The moment you notice something else amiss, you'll notify me immediately, understood?" he barked; the moonlight shining through the window catching his dark hair.

"Yes, sir!" Eren replied, resisting the urge to salute.

The older man snorted and continued his way down the corridor, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "Idiot can't even take care of himself."

"Training starts at ten tomorrow," Levi informed him flatly when they ended right in front of his private room.

"Okay, sir," Eren murmured and hesitated, wondering whether Levi would welcome his touch now. He didn't appear very welcoming now.

The dark haired man sighed and rolled his eyes and then there was a sudden quick squeeze around his wrist, calloused fingertips caressing his inner wrist.

"Goodnight, Eren," Levi murmured and immediately left, seemingly disappearing into the shadows.

"Eren?" Mikasa blinked sleepily at him, leaning out of her room; her red scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Even at night she refused to take it off.

Absentmindedly he thought it was high time he got her a new scarf; this one wouldn't hold out for long anymore.

"Sorry, Mikasa, just got back from signing reports," he murmured, offering her a quick smile.

Her dark eyes softened. "Get some rest, Eren. You don't look so well," she said concerned.

"I will," he reassured her and waited until she had closed the door of her room before he entered his own.

His shirt and trousers were placed on the chair on top of his belts. His shoes were dumped underneath the chair. A soft breeze caused the ratty curtain to flutter softly; the moonlight casting one long beam stretching over the ground, up onto the wall.

Eren slid into his bed in nothing but his underwear and laid down on his back, pointedly not placing his arms across his stomach; eyes staring listlessly at the dark ceiling. His stomach churned and something told him that he wouldn't like the result of Hange's research of his blood. He didn't have to be a doctor to realise that whatever was happening to him now was not normal and he just knew that he was in deep shit.

Sleep didn't take over for a long, long time.

* * *

It happened during training two days later.

One moment he was completing the last turn with his 3D gear that the Captain had ordered them to perform – "I don't fucking care that you haven't needed this particular move in six months, Kirstein. You'll either execute this manoeuvre or you'll muck out the stables on your own for a month!" – and the next moment he was on his back on the ground with Mikasa and Armin peering at him with panic etched onto their faces.

"Eren! Can you hear me?" Mikasa asked worriedly, gripping his shoulder but not shaking him. She seemingly didn't dare to move him around.

A groan escaped his throat as pain flared up in his back when he shifted around. Fuck, had he broken something? Not that he wouldn't heal from that, but that still didn't take away the pain that burned like a bitch.

"Can you sit up?" Armin questioned, heavily frowning. He bit his lip as he and Mikasa braced their arms around Eren's shoulders to help him sit up. "Anything broken?"

"Don't know, but my back hurts like hell," Eren groused, gingerly running a hand over his back; his nails catching on the harness.

"You took a pretty nasty fall," Sasha piped up, bracing her hands on her knees as she leant forwards to look at him.

"You okay, Eren?" Connie asked when he landed on the ground after finishing his own manoeuvre.

"What the hell happened, Yeager?" Levi asked harshly, marching over to him. A frown marred his forehead and his mouth was a thin line.

"Don't know, sir," Eren grimaced, slowly standing up, cataloguing the aches that popped up. Nothing appeared to be broken, though, and soon he was standing up right again, feeling the back of his head in case he had a head wound. His hand came back clear. "I think I passed out."

"Passed out from what? Can't be from the fucking heat, considering the sun's barely out," Levi snapped, crossing his arms. His steel grey eyes studied Eren's form carefully.

Eren shrugged, wincing when a twinge of pain shot through his lower back. All right, so maybe he hadn't healed completely yet. Fuck.

"Maybe you haven't had enough breakfast," Connie suggested and Sasha looked incredulously at him, as if she couldn't imagine someone not eating enough at breakfast. She probably couldn't.

"Don't know," Eren grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "Could be." He had eaten like he always did, though, so he didn't think it had something to do with that.

"You don't look like you're going to keel over any time soon, so do you think you can continue training?" Levi questioned gruffly, but Eren thought he could see a glimmer of concern in his intimidating eyes.

Instantly Mikasa glared at him. "Sir, he just lost consciousness for no reason. Don't you think it's better if he gets examined?" she argued, standing rigidly next to Eren.

"Mikasa, I'm fine," Eren reassured her, patting her arm. He adjusted the gear. "I can train, I promise."

"You're sure, Yeager?" Levi stared at him incredulously.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I swear," Eren stressed, shifting from one foot to the other. Oddly he did feel better; he still didn't know why he had suddenly lost consciousness but he felt fine now. He could continue his training, he was sure of it. Years of practice allowed him to ignore Mikasa's scolding look as he snatched his blades from the ground.

"Continue then," the captain said, narrowing his eyes a bit. His eyes fell on the others who lingered near them. "Why the fuck are you still standing here? Don't you have a training to finish?" he barked, striding back to the side of the field where they were practicing with their equipment.

Connie groaned, but dragged himself back to the wall, ready to start anew, with Sasha closely following.

"Let's go," Armin murmured, nodding at the captain's retreating back. "Don't want to give him any reason to come back."

"That midget shouldn't force Eren to continue training," Mikasa growled and scowled at Eren when he sighed. "And you should know better than to continue training! What if you collapse again?"

"Mikasa, really, I feel _fine_!" he stressed, making his way back to the wall. He didn't even bother to make a remark about her midget comment. She would never like Levi, no matter how many years they'd work together. He had long since given up trying to figure out why exactly she still didn't like the other man.

All the way to the wall, she kept nagging, insisting that he sat out this training and visited Hange for a check-up, while Armin tried to diffuse the slight tension between them.

Right when his grapple-hooks shot out and fixed themselves to the wall, he glanced sideways and caught Levi's studying gaze aimed at him. The man raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Eren swallowed and let himself be pulled up by the hooks, hearing the wind whistle in his ear. Levi might have conceded to letting him continue his training, but he clearly wouldn't let the subject drop entirely.

He really wasn't looking forward to that particular conversation.

* * *

 **AN2: I know, I know, not much excitement has happened yet, but I had to set up the story before I can delve right into the drama and angst. (First time I'm not writing an AU for this fandom, so I hope I'm not screwing it up *sweatdrops*)**

 **I hope you liked the first part! See you all in the next one!**

 **Cuddles**

 **Melissa**

 **P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Soooo, this was supposed to be the last part. With stress on 'supposed to be'. Except it isn't. Because I'm a sucker for chapters of the same length (give or take a few paragraphs), I'll be writing a third part for this story (Cazzy, I know what you're going to say, but at least it's not going to be seven parts :P ).**

 **So yeah, you can expect a part three. Also, some parts in this chapter gave me a lot of trouble - that's why this is so late - so I hope I didn't screw up too badly. *winces***

 **Thanks to the following reviewers: yukino76; SweetLittleLolipop; babyvfan; xxKuroichoxx**

 **Warnings: angst; foul language; reference to abortion (mainly near the end); Eren is really not happy in this chapter; don't expect fluff here; something bordering on a breakdown**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Attack on Titan. Hajime Isayama owns it.**

 **I hope you'll like it!**

* * *

 _ **Part 2**_

The older man waited until after lunch to corner him.

As had been routine for years when there was no mission, the whole squad was cleaning the entire building under Levi's command. The man was going from room to room, making sure that none of them were skirting their tasks. Eren had already heard him viciously berating Jean for not cleaning the windows to the captain's standards, but Jean had always been an idiot when it came to cleaning, so the brunette wasn't surprised in the least. He was just glad that he had learnt early on how to clean the place to meet the dark haired man's standards.

"So you didn't collapse again, which is good," Levi said casually, leaning against the doorframe. He held a dust cloth between two fingers and his hair was as always hidden by a piece of white cloth tied around his head.

Eren uttered a non-committal grunt, glaring at a particular stubborn spot on the windowsill that he had been trying to remove for the past ten minutes. He had cleaned this room last week, so what the hell had happened in the meantime that had made it this dirty?

"What happened during training?" Levi entered the room, closing the door behind him. His gaze trailed over the room, probably searching for a spot that Eren had missed.

They might sleep together, but that didn't mean that Levi would soften up when it came to cleaning.

"I don't know," Eren sighed, rubbing harder over the stubborn dirt spot. One way or the other, he would get that spot off the windowsill. "I suddenly blacked out, that's all I know."

"But you felt fine afterwards?" Levi snorted and the sound of boots clanking on the wooden floor echoed a bit through the room as the older man wandered from one wall to the other. "I find that a bit hard to believe. I don't fucking care about your healing – you don't think it's strange you suddenly blacked out? The fuck, it's not like you were training in your titan form."

His hand clenched around the damp cloth and he stared through the window, irritation flaring up. Taking a deliberate slow breath, he replied monotonously, "What else do you expect me to say, sir? Maybe I didn't eat enough." He shrugged; his hand stilled on top of the spot.

"We both know that's bullshit," Levi retorted sharply.

His breath escaping in a loud hiss, Eren whirled around, glaring at his superior. "Look, I don't know what the hell you want me to say!" he snapped annoyed. "I blacked out for some reason. I feel fine now, so who the fuck cares?"

The wet cloth dripped on the floor.

Grey eyes narrowed. "Were you remembering something that had to do with your father?"

Eren tensed; his muscles in his back and shoulders cramping up. His father was a taboo subject, even after all this time. He didn't appreciate his father being brought up again; couldn't he just lose consciousness without it being tied to memories of his father? Why did his blacking out automatically have to have a real reason behind it?

"No, I wasn't remembering anything," he bit out eventually, turning back around to the offending dirty spot. "People black out sometimes; it happens."

"Didn't I tell you that you needed to inform me of any weird things that you experience?" Levi bit out, taking a step closer.

"Well, of course; it's not like you were there when it happened after all," Eren retorted sarcastically, watching how his breath fogged up the window slightly.

"Damn it, Yeager! Can't you take this serious - "

A loud crash at the end of the hallway followed by a panicked shout cut him off and for a few seconds nobody moved; everything was silent.

Then Levi cursed, muttered, "Fucking arsewipes, the lot of them!" and stormed out of the room in search of the unfortunate person who had just made an even bigger mess.

With a 'thunk' Eren dropped his head against the window and stared despondently at the stables where some of the new recruits – what were their names again? Blaine and Melinda? Blaise and Belinda? Whatever; didn't matter – were mucking out the stables.

Levi wasn't about to let this go; he knew him well enough for that. He would bitch until Eren finally acquiesced and told him what had happened, but that was just it: he didn't have a fucking clue. He knew just as much as Levi did about his fainting spell – which was to say: absolutely nothing, nada, zilch. Chances of Levi believing him, though, were nihil to practically non-existing.

The young man sighed and his eyes slipped back to the dirty spot. Well, he might as well try to attack that spot again. It did seem a bit fainter if he cocked his head just so.

Or maybe it was a trick of the light.

Whatever. He went back to cleaning.

* * *

Almost. He had almost been in the clear.

The entire day he had managed to avoid the captain; it hadn't been that difficult. The majority of his friends still hadn't fully grasped the level of cleanliness that Levi required and the older man had been flitting from room to room berating them for forgetting to dust on top of the closets or leaving a shoe mark behind on the floor.

If Eren hadn't still been pissed off from his conversation with the dark haired man, he might have laughed at his more colourful use of the language.

Dinner had been a mostly quiet affair as the sulking soldiers tried to lie low in case something sparked Levi's ire again. All of them had fought multiple titans, but a man of five feet twenty-five managed to scare them into submissiveness. To be fair, though, Levi having a bad day was ten times scarier than a rampaging titan. Mostly because you could still fight off and defeat a titan – Levi was much more likely to kick your arse seven ways to Sunday and win the fight.

Dishwashing duty had fallen on Mikasa, Armin and Connie today, so Eren had slipped out of the dining room before Mikasa could even think of reeling him inside the kitchen and continuing to fuss over him. He loved her, he really did, but at times she could really test his patience with all her fussing over him. He wasn't a little boy anymore, damn it!

The dying sunlight painted the corridor a soft red and rose; shadows of tree branches swaying in the wind and birds flying past played across the wall. His boots echoed; a faint hollow sound that cleaved through the silence.

Idly wondering whether anyone would be up on the roof at this hour, Eren turned around the corner; the rickety staircase leading up to the roof in sight.

Alas the roof would not be graced with his presence tonight as a steely voice behind him made him freeze.

"Did you really think you could get away from me this easily?" Levi asked frostily.

 _God damn it_. Eren turned around with a frown. "Sir, really, there's nothing else I can tell you," he said through gritted teeth. "I really don't know what made me faint and honestly, I don't give a fuck right now either."

Usually his choice of language – or more accurately the lack of respect he was currently portraying – would have earned him a tongue lashing or a kick sending him to the floor, but this time Levi narrowed his eyes, cocking his head faintly to the left.

"You're not going to faint on me now, are you?" he asked suspiciously. "You look like shit."

"Gee, thanks; you really know how to flatter a guy," Eren retorted dryly, running a hand through his hair.

"Eren, cut the crap already. You need to - "

"Ah, there you two are!"

Both men whipped around, watching Hange stride towards them with a maniac glint in their eyes. Eren was instantly alarmed. Not specifically by the maniac glint – he had grown used to that particular look after so much time working with them – but by the worry layered underneath it. There wasn't much that could worry the scientist; the things that did … Well, they usually promised death or at the very least a lot of danger.

"Hange," Levi greeted them warily.

They flapped their hands anxiously, nearly smacking them against the wall. "I finished researching your blood, Eren, and well, I really need to talk to you about it."

"You took a long time researching his blood," Levi grunted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

They grimaced, adjusting their glasses. "That was because I wanted to be certain that the result wasn't a fluke," they muttered, scratching the back of their head. "Come on, let's go to my room. This is not a conversation that we should have in the corridor."

"That bad?" Eren questioned apprehensively, but a sliver of fear wound itself around his stomach, squeezing it. What was in his blood that was so bad they had to have a private conversation about it? That had Hange looking so out of their element?

Was he … was he dying? A nearly hysterical chuckle was harshly swallowed down; there was some kind of irony in the fact that his body would succeed in killing him faster than the Court would.

"You know, Mister Grumpypants, you don't need to be present during the conversation," Hange said casually as they descended the staircase to their room. Despite their light tone, a jittery undertone laced their voice which did nothing to soothe Eren's nerves.

"Still assigned to watch him, dipshit, so I'm coming with you," Levi growled and the hairs in Eren's neck rose at his close proximity.

They shrugged. "Suit yourself," they chirped and unlocked the door to their room. "It might be a bit messy," they warned, shoving some boxes to the side with their foot as they entered the room.

"A bit?" Levi repeated darkly, casting a foul look around the place. His fingers twitched as if he was itching to grab a cloth and start cleaning.

"All right, here's the thing," Hange started, rummaging through the stuff on their table. "I need to ask you a question, Eren, and it's of the utmost importance that you give me an honest answer."

"Okay," Eren said slowly and the nerves turned up a notch. Already he didn't like where this conversation was going and they had barely started talking!

"Approximately four months ago, did you engage in sexual intercourse with a man?" Hange looked at him expectantly; their glasses glinting in the dim light.

"What?" Eren asked bemused, thrown off guard by the odd question. What the fuck did him having sex with a guy have to do with his blood results?

"The question, my dear boy," they clucked their tongue; their fingers grabbing the edges of the papers tightly, creasing them slightly.

"I – yes," Eren answered after a short bout of silence, resolutely not looking in Levi's direction. While homosexual relationships weren't exactly forbidden, they weren't encouraged either and everyone was advised against having them. Eren was already threading a thin line by fucking with a man, but if word came out that he was fucking with the captain … More importantly with Humanity's Strongest, then shit would hit the fan hard. The whole shit about Levi being his superior would not even be the biggest problem.

Hange hummed, tapping their fingers erratically against the wooden table. "Well, in that case my results are definitely true; no mistaking those," they muttered distractedly, gnawing on their lower lip. "But how this is possible is beyond my comprehension honestly."

"Hange!" Levi barked and they started; their head whipped up to stare at him shocked. "Are you going to tell us what you discovered or do we have to fucking guess?"

They sighed and rolled their shoulders, cracking their neck loudly. "Look, what I'm about to say is going to sound unbelievable, I know, but it's the only thing that makes sense given everything," they started, leaning back against the table. "Your bloodwork showed a high level of a particular hormone."

"Which hormone?" Eren furrowed his eyebrows.

"A hormone that we usually only find in women," they continued, looking contemplatively. "More specifically when these women are expecting a child."

Incredulous laughter left Levi and he spat out, "Are you saying that Yeager is pregnant? Fucking hell, that's too much out of the realm of possibilities to be even believable. How the hell did you fuck up reading his results?"

They frowned, throwing him a disapproving look. "Why do you think it took me so long to talk about the results? I checked four times; everything adds up." They began ticking off their fingers. "The nausea, the recent development of the layer of fat on his belly, the hormone levels in his blood and the fact that I picked up a second heartbeat when I used the stethoscope."

"You picked up a second heartbeat?" Levi repeated sceptically.

Eren didn't hear Hange's reply. His ears were filled with an obnoxious ringing sound and he blinked dazedly as he stumbled backwards, finding support in the form of a wall. All the strength left his legs and he sank downwards, practically falling down. He tried to focus on his hands, but his fingers burrowed themselves into his thighs and not even the sharp sting of his nails pressing into his skin made him flinch.

Surely this had to be a mistake? There was no way he was pre – there was no way this was happening. It was _impossible_. He was a guy, for fuck's sake! There was no possible explanation as to how he could be – how he could be in this state. There had to be another explanation; maybe Hange had misread the results of his blood. That could happen, right? Everyone made mistakes after all. Nobody was perfect.

"Are you sure?" he croaked out, cutting off whatever the captain had been saying. "Because I'm a guy. Completely a guy. Last time I checked I hadn't lost my dick."

Hange swivelled around to face him, looking a tad worried when they caught sight of his position. "Yes, completely sure I'm afraid," they answered. "I already had a suspicion when I used the stethoscope and your bloodwork just confirmed it. You are indeed carrying a child, Eren. I'd say you're around four months along. I could let you listen to the heartbeat if you don't believe me, but I can assure you that I'm not joking in the slightest."

 _Out_. It had to be taken _out_. The thought reverberated through his mind as he stood up again on weak legs. There was no way he would keep this – this _thing_. It wasn't normal, it wasn't natural, it had to be taken out of him!

Hange was rambling, explaining how they thought this was possible, when Eren tuned back into the conversation, "… been looking through some old books and one of them described a person who was in possession of both male and female genitals. The author said some people are born like that; they were called hermaphrodites. The book didn't mention whether a male hermaphrodite would be able to become pregnant, but then again half of the book is missing, so the information regarding that might have been in the missing part. Regardless, this is a fascinating situation and I think - "

"Take it out of me," Eren interrupted them roughly, staring at them desperately. "You know how to operate; take it out of me, please." He didn't chance a look at Levi, who had gone silent.

Hange looked taken aback. "Eh, are you sure, Eren?" they asked slowly. "Maybe it's best if you discuss this with the man who is the other father."

Frantically Eren shook his head, reminding himself to keep breathing. "No, no need to. Take it out of me now." When Hange still hesitated, he snapped, "Look, there's already a bullseye painted on my back for being a shifter! This thing will just make it worse!" He probably would be executed anyway for being a shifter, but at least without this thing inside of him he would get a few months more.

A few months more to be with his friends versus an immediate death once his state became known … Yeah, he knew which one to pick.

It wasn't – it wasn't as if this thing was normal anyway. It was more like a parasite; if it was removed, it would make his life easier. He knew he wasn't completely normal – with being a titan shifter – but he'd be damned if this would take the last bit of normality he still had away from him.

The thought that maybe Levi might want to – no, he wasn't going to think about that. It wasn't relevant anyway.

And if it turned out that Hange was mistaken and it was some – some kind of tumour or so then he still wanted to get rid of it. It didn't matter what it was – it needed to be _gone._ He didn't want anything messing with his body; he already had enough shit to deal with being a shifter.

"You heard him, Hange," Levi said flatly when they stood there, biting their lip. "He wants to have it removed."

Hange sighed, looking a bit downtrodden which had Eren stamping down a flare of irritation. They weren't the ones who were in this mess; they didn't know how fucked up he felt right now. They had no right to look disappointed just because he chose a normal life.

"All right, I can do it now if you want to?" They cocked their head.

Eren nodded silently. As if he was going to wait a minute longer.

"Follow me then," Hange muttered, walking to a door on the right. "I'm going to sedate you fully, Eren, if that's all right with you."

"Sure," he mumbled, following them into a room where a metal table stood in the middle. It wasn't as if he liked being cut into; if he didn't have to be conscious for it, all the better.

"Remove your shirt and lie down on the table," Hange ordered, rummaging through some cupboards.

He couldn't supress a shiver when the cold air hit his skin; outside it might get warmer each day, but clearly that warmth didn't reach down here. After discarding the shirt on a lone chair, he shuffled back to the table and jumped on top of it. Hissing underneath his breath at the onslaught of freezing coldness that was the table, he forced himself to keep lying flat, instead of curling up like he so badly wanted to do. If he raised his head a bit, he would see the odd bulge that was his stomach now. As it was, he refused to even look downwards and kept his eyes fixated on the grey ceiling as his heart beat erratically in his chest.

Levi had entered the room as well and Eren noticed him in his peripheral vision, lounging against the wall. Unwillingly his eyes darted towards the older man. As always his face was blank, wiped from every emotion. Eren had learnt to read him – a skill developed from working with the man for so many years – but now he couldn't figure out at all what the man was thinking about all this.

When they had started this … relationship so many months ago, they had never really talked about what they were to each other. They never spoke about it. There was nothing to talk about. They sought comfort in this world where one wrong step could mean your death and had found it in each other. They understood each other and that had made it easier to accept whatever was happening between them. It hadn't been a conscious decision – not really. Eren still didn't know who exactly had taken the first step. He just knew that one moment Levi was still his superior only and the next he had become something more.

Only in private of course; Eren wasn't willing to risk their lives for whatever this thing between them was. It wasn't only physical gratification either; there were moments – stolen moments in the pure darkness when everyone around them was fast asleep and their lives weren't in immediate danger – that Levi opened up to him, told him pieces of his past as he laid there in bed; Eren rubbing circles around his hipbone.

So Eren knew about the two best friends he had lost to the titans; knew some parts about Kenny and the way he had raised Levi. He knew that for the better part of his life, Levi had been alone. The dark haired man never used the word 'lonely', but Eren thought that was merely an unspoken thought.

Levi had never had a real family. What was he thinking now, now that Eren had decided to get rid of –

No, not thinking about that. There was no point in trying to figure out what Levi was thinking about this. He would get rid of this and they would never talk about it again; they could pretend nothing had happened. They probably would have to be more careful from now on to avoid having the same thing happening again, but …

"Okay, Eren, I'm sedating you now," Hange announced and then there was the quick sting of a needle pricking through his skin. "You'll be out for a few hours."

Whatever kind of sedative Hange had given him, it was working quickly. His eyelids grew heavier with each second that passed and the room became blurry; the sparse objects in the room turned into fuzzy blobs.

The last thing he saw – no, felt; definitely felt – was the piercing gaze of Levi.

* * *

The ceiling free of cobwebs told him that he was in a completely different room when he woke up again. His head throbbed slightly and he blinked dazedly; trying to figure out where he exactly was. He thought he recognised the ceiling and the feeling of the sheets underneath him, but …

"I can practically hear you thinking from here," a harsh voice snorted.

Eren turned his head and relaxed slightly when he caught sight of Levi balancing on two legs of his chair. "Why am I - "

"Bringing you to your room while you were still under sedation would raise too many questions from your friends," Levi answered, lowering the chair back down. "I don't have the patience to deal with your friends' nagging, so I brought you to my room."

"Ah. Wait." Eren's eyes grew wider as he finally remembered why he had been sedated. "Did it – did Hange remove it?" he asked hesitatingly, not daring to look down yet. He didn't feel sore, but that might have to do with the fact that his body healed quickly.

He froze underneath Levi's unwavering gaze.

"No," the older man said eventually; his mouth pulled in a strange emotion. "Hange tried, but every time your body closed up. Didn't matter how many fucking times they cut you open; it obviously didn't want to be removed."

His heart skipped a beat and the ringing in his ears started again. Mouth extremely dry all of a sudden, Eren managed to bring out, "What – what do you mean: my body closed up? It's – it's still in me?!" His voice gained a higher pitch at the end and any other time he would be embarrassed by that – for fuck's sake, he wasn't a teenager anymore! – but all he could think about now was the fact that it was still _inside_ him. He was still carrying that thing and revulsion coursed through him. His fingers burrowed themselves into the sheets, resembling claws, and his breathing quickened as realisation sank fully in that he was still stuck with it. Hange hadn't managed to take it out of him. _Why not?_

"The – the sedative is meant to keep me from healing immediately!" he spat out, panic slowly rising up, clawing at him.

"Like hell I know!" Levi snapped, abruptly rising from his chair. "Every time Hange meant to cut the womb out of you, your body healed immediately. If they hadn't taken their hands out of you on time, your skin would have fucking healed around it. They had to give up after a while, because it was fucking useless."

"But it's still inside! What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Eren asked shrilly. The urge to just grab something sharp and start cutting into his stomach was rising – alarmingly so – and his eyes shot from one side of the room to the other, searching for an appropriate tool. He couldn't keep it; he didn't want to keep it, it had to get out of him NOW!

SMACK!

His right cheek stung and he covered the throbbing spot with his hand as he stared in disbelief at the older man standing in front of him with his hand still raised in the air.

"What the fuck was that for?" Eren hissed angrily, shoving himself backwards against the wall.

"To snap you the fuck out of it," Levi barked; anger flaring up in his eyes. "Don't do anything stupid, Eren." He looked warningly at him, as if he had an inkling as to what Eren had been wanting to do – with how scarily well the man knew him, that could actually be true.

If the captain even suspected that Eren was planning on doing something to remove the thing inside of him …

Eren slumped against the wall; the fight in him disappearing like smoke. He could try to sneak around Levi, but the consequences wouldn't be pretty at all. The man wasn't going to hold back merely because they were sleeping together.

"Seriously, Levi, what the hell am I supposed to do now?" he asked quietly, giving the older man a pleading look. He was completely out of his depth here, even more than he had been when he discovered that he could transform into a titan. Nothing had ever prepared him for something as unreal as this. What the hell was he supposed to do? If Hange couldn't remove it, what was going to happen?

Levi exhaled loudly and turned his head to look out of the window. "We're going to inform Erwin about this."

"We're going to tell the commander that I'm pre – that I'm in this state?" Eren squeaked and yeah, he wasn't proud of that, but seriously? Telling the commander about this – how would he react?

Grey eyes threw him a sharp look. "It's not like we can keep this a secret from him," Levi answered annoyed. "We're going to need his help in covering this whole shit up. The less people know about this, the better."

"So I – I have to keep it?" Eren swallowed harshly.

Grey eyes shuttered close, locking away whatever emotion that had been about to spill out and the brunette flinched. "It's not like there's a choice, right? Something – whether that's that fucking titan healing of yours or whatever the fuck else – is keeping the kid safe. Until we figure out a way to get it out of you, you'll have to keep it. There's no other choice."

Eren looked away, uncomfortable underneath the heavy gaze.

Something had shifted between them and he didn't dare to contemplate what that was. He didn't think he wanted to know it either.

* * *

The commander was informed early the next morning. Hange did most of the explaining with Levi interjecting whenever it was needed, but Eren stayed silent the entire time. He didn't know what he could possibly have to say. Once Erwin addressed him directly, asking him who the other father was and Eren shrugged, telling him in a listless tone that it was just some unknown soldier he had spent the night with when they had been in the inner city. Erwin hadn't asked further; whether that was because he believed Eren or he just didn't care, Eren didn't know. The less questions about the parentage, however, the better. He was careful not to look at Levi too long, though. He didn't want to give the older blond any reason to grow suspicious.

Erwin reassured them that this wouldn't become public; he knew all too well how precarious Eren's situation was. His new state added a whole new layer of danger. They decided that he could wear his cape for now as cover up. The moment his stomach became too obviously rounded – and Hange predicted that would happen given how 'normal' (Eren couldn't ignore a shiver of revulsion) his pregnancy was progressing so far – they would need to figure out something else. Erwin mused aloud about keeping Eren hidden away once his condition became too obvious, but promised to figure out a better plan soon.

As soon as Eren was dismissed, he searched out Mikasa and Armin and told them honestly what was happening to him. He knew that his condition had to be kept a secret, but he knew he could trust his best friends with it. Besides, he needed their presence to keep him sane. He didn't think he could handle this without his best friends at his side. Certainly not now that there was this strange chasm between him and Levi.

Predictably Mikasa was furious, demanding to know who the other father was, but Eren refused to answer, claiming he couldn't recall the name or the face. He didn't even dare to imagine how Mikasa would react if she knew who the real father was.

Armin had looked at him speculatively, but he didn't push Eren about it and the young man was grateful for that.

Eventually Mikasa hugged him tightly, swearing she would do everything to help him and Armin nodded, already muttering about research he was going to do in order to be fully prepared.

For the first time in what felt like forever Eren smiled, hiding his face in Mikasa's soft, black hair.

He knew he could count on his friends. With them at his side, he thought he would be able to handle this without going insane. He could do this. If he could deal with being a shifter, he could certainly deal with this. Just five more months and then everything would be normal again.

It would be okay.

* * *

A month later he was personally summoned to the Court.

* * *

 **AN2: I think this was one of the most difficult chapters I've written so far *frowns* Some of the scenes refused to cooperate with me *sighs***

 **Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.**

 **Next chapter: Eren is in bigger trouble than he could have imagined. It seems like his luck has finally run out.**

 **See you all in the next chapter!**

 **Cuddles**

 **Melissa**

 **P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: A bit later than I wanted, but I had some trouble with the last few scenes and it's only thanks to a good friend of mine that it didn't end up being crappy. It also turned out a bit longer than the previous ones, but that couldn't be helped.**

 **Thanks to the following reviewers: Ageha Yume; SweetLittleLolipop; Ern Estine 13624; xxKuroichoxx; babyvfan; yukino76**

 **Warnings: angst, a lot of it; mentions of blood; implied mature content; drama; time skip; rather bloody birth scene; foul language**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Attack on Titan. Hajime Isayama owns it.**

 **I hope you'll like this last part!**

* * *

 **Part 3**

Betrayal shouldn't sting this much, Eren mused as he stared blankly at the floor. He had experienced worse betrayal with Annie, Reiner and Bertolt. Really, this piece of betrayal shouldn't even be a bleep on his radar, considering he didn't even know the girl personally.

And yet, it still stung fiercely like a thousand needles puncturing his skin.

The Court knew about his condition. One of the new recruits – a girl called Maria or something along those lines – had gone through Hange's personal files and had stumbled upon Eren's file in which the scientist was jotting down notes about his condition. Thanks to their shitty luck, the girl turned out to be a daughter of one of the higher ups in the Court and she had gone tattling to them.

Result: Commander Erwin, Captain Levi, Squad Leader Zoe and Eren were summoned to the Court. Some of his friends were there as well, loitering somewhere outside. The guards had been very peculiar about who they let inside.

"Is there a particular reason as to why you did not disclose this information to the Court, Commander Smith?" a man in his mid-forties – already more grey than brown haired – called Peter Larren asked frostily, waving the file accusingly in the air.

As always Erwin remained unperturbed. "As this is an unusual situation, we decided to study it to find out what would happen. Squad Leader Zoe is in charge of this research," he answered calmly, looking Larren straight in his eyes.

A woman – whose face resembled a toad, down to the nearly bulging eyeballs – piped up, "And you did not think to remove it as soon as you became aware of the shifter's condition?" Her mouth was curled up in a sneer and her voice was nasal.

"As I've written down in the file, Eren's healing counteracted the attempt to removal of the foetus," Hange replied, their eyes narrowed slightly. "We're keeping an eye on it, however, so there's no need for any worry."

"Be that as it may, I think I speak for us all if I say that having a titan child in our midst would be a catastrophe," Larren retorted sharply. His ice blue eyes glided over Eren, resting temporarily on his waist, before the man sneered and looked away.

Eren barely resisted the urge to wrap his arms around his waist and hide the evidence from those piercing, judging eyes.

"We're not even sure that the kid will be a titan," Levi remarked; his tone even sharper than that of Larren. "For all we know, it's going to be a normal kid."

The toad woman curled up her upper lip and argued, "The fact that his body healed before you could even remove it signifies that - "

"That Yeager's titan healing kicked in just like it always does whenever the fuck he gets injured," Levi snapped, crossing his arms. "It doesn't mean shit."

Another man sitting in the back row commented, "What I am curious about is who the other father is."

Larren raised an eyebrow. "Yeager?"

Well, at least it was his last name and not just 'shifter' like some had taken to calling him. It was progress of some kind.

"I don't know his name," Eren replied blankly. "We weren't exactly interested in trading names."

The man in the back snorted derisively and Eren reminded himself sternly that lashing out would only bring them into bigger trouble. What he wouldn't give to punch that fucker in his face, though …

"So we have a male shifter who is pregnant and a large possibility that the child will be a titan," another woman – who seemed to exist entirely out of wrinkles – remarked coolly. "Tell me, Smith, do you have a plan in case the child is a titan?"

Erwin raised an eyebrow, not ruffled in the slightest by the large amount of distrust in the old croon's voice. "The chances of the child being a titan are incredibly small to nil, madam. We've discovered years ago where titans actually originate from, so I'm confident that Yeager's child won't be a titan. Nevertheless we will take the appropriate action and supervise the child in case of potential trouble."

Only the commander could be so flippant and call a possible titan in the making 'potential trouble'. Eren swallowed a hysterical chuckle, biting down harshly on his tongue.

"Throughout the years you have proven your worth despite your … unorthodox methods at times," Larren spoke slowly. "You have given us no reason to doubt your decisions."

 _But_. There was going to be a _but,_ Eren knew. And he was proven right. Fuck, for once he wished he wasn't right.

"But in this situation we cannot turn a blind eye, Erwin," he gravelly continued. "This situation is too precarious. If word reaches the streets that a shifter is expecting a child … The people would be outraged and the ensuing panic would be catastrophic."

"The fuck, aren't you exaggerating just a bit now?" Levi glared, contempt plastered across his face. "The people aren't that fucking idiotic, fucking hell."

"Considering your contributions for the survival of humankind, we have decided that you, Commander Smith, Captain Levi and Squad Leader Zoe will only receive a black mark in your records for attempting to keep this a secret," Larren continued, acting as if he hadn't heard Levi's interruption. "Further consequences regarding you three won't be taken."

"And we're so fucking grateful," Levi muttered darkly, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. "If that is all, we have to prepare for our next mission."

Larren raised his hand and Eren suddenly, inexplicably felt cold. This was not good. Whatever Larren would say next – the young man just knew it wouldn't be good.

"You three will not suffer more consequences bar the black mark in your records," Larren repeated and his eyes slowly slid over to Eren again. This time they did not gaze away as he stated, "However, the Court has decided that the titan shifter Eren Yeager proves to be too great of a liability and his 'usefulness' has run out."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Levi questioned tersely and next to him Hange tensed up; their back rigid.

A whole block of ice seemed to have settled in Eren's stomach, weighing him down, and he closed his eyes as Larren announced the final verdict.

"We cannot risk letting that abomination inside of him live. We will not see our hard work destroyed. Tomorrow at eleven a.m. Eren Yeager will be executed."

* * *

"Not quite a fancy last meal they have given you."

Eren opened his eyes, blinked at the mildew covered stones – for being in the inner city they really took shitty care of their buildings (or maybe they just didn't care about dungeons) – and rose up on his sorry excuse for a mattress. He would probably have been better off sleeping on the floor to be honest.

"Sir," he greeted the older man casually and quirked a dark smile. "To be honest I wouldn't have eaten it even if it was the fanciest meal they had ever prepared."

Levi sneered at the plate which had been hastily thrown on the floor by a guard who seemed to want to be anywhere _but_ near Eren. The measly excuse that had to resemble dinner was put together with a couple of half boiled potatoes and something that had to resemble sauce, but which looked more like a cat had vomited. Eren very much doubted that even Sasha could be convinced to eat it.

"Can't say I blame you," Levi muttered and studied him with narrowed eyes. "I was expecting to see Ackerman and Arlert here," he continued casually as if he wasn't speaking to someone who was officially on death row.

Eren shrugged half-heartedly. "They were here before," he said quietly; his mind assaulted with the memory of a silently crying Mikasa who was doing her best to remain strong and a numb Armin whose hands hadn't seemed to know where to land. There hadn't been much said between the three of them; what was there to say? This was not something they could bluff their way out of; after all those years, Eren's luck had finally run out. Nothing could help him anymore. He knew it, Armin knew it, Mikasa knew it. They all knew it.

The time they had had together hadn't been enough, would never be enough. Time was their greatest enemy now.

If Eren closed his eyes he could still feel Mikasa's trembling form hugging him tightly; her flower scent curling into his nose. Could still feel Armin clinging to him like he had done when they were still mere children and their greatest enemies had been bullies as big as them. When everything had seemed to simple and their lives hadn't yet been fucked over.

All of that was now gone.

The sound of a key turning into the lock – rusty metal rubbing against each other reverberating through the dungeon – shocked him out of his memories and he gaped as Levi casually strolled inside, looking right at home.

"Pretty sure the guard isn't going to agree with you coming inside the cell," he muttered, scratching the back of his head.

Levi grunted, coming to a stop in front of the bed. "He's currently enjoying Hange's explanation on how titans came into existence," he sneered. "He'll be distracted for a while I'll imagine."

Eren couldn't even find it in him to feel sorry for the bastard.

"Why are you here?" he asked, cocking his head to the right. He leant against the wall, bringing one leg up and tried to ignore the fact how he couldn't press his leg against his chest anymore thanks to his stomach being in the way.

Grey eyes, darkened, glanced away. "Erwin tried to appeal your case, but they remain by their decision," he said flatly.

"I figured they wouldn't change their minds," Eren mumbled, picking at a loose thread of the mattress. Even Erwin's influence didn't reach that far.

From his peripheral vision he noticed Levi shifting his weight. "I thought you'd be furious. Have you given up?"

Eren sighed and rolled his head backwards, thumping it against the wall. "I didn't expect them to let me live even if I wasn't in this condition," he answered flatly. "Don't get me wrong; I want to live, but I also realise that's impossible. I could turn into a titan I suppose. The idiots didn't shackle me down," he laughed bitterly. "But that would mean fucking over your careers and you don't deserve to be screwed over thanks to something I did."

"Noble till the end," Levi sneered and took a step closer. "And arrogant as hell. We don't need you to protect us, you idiot."

A self-deprecating chuckle escaped Eren and he shook his head. "Probably not, no," he acquiesced and lowered his leg, staring at his feet. "But if I can avoid making your lives difficult, I'd do it."

"You're such a fucking idiot," Levi muttered frustrated, raking his hands through his hair. He opened his mouth, but closed it with a 'snap' and he whirled around, turning his back at Eren. His whole posture radiated fury and tension and something in Eren settled and he felt strangely at ease now. He could deal with this Levi; he had dealt with him before when he was in this state.

"Instead of a last fancy meal, how about a last fuck?" he murmured, leaning forwards a bit.

A sharp bark of laughter left Levi and it sounded cold, rebounding against the walls. He turned back around and sneered. "That's how you want to spend your last night alive? Fucking? For fuck's sake, all that shifting messing with your head?"

"It's my last night," Eren said quietly and held out his hand. "Can't I decide who I want to spend it with? How I want to spend it?"

"You really make shitty choices," Levi informed him, but he crossed the remaining space anyway and halted in front of Eren, who looked up at him from his place on the bed.

"Yeah, I know," Eren smiled wryly. _But you're not a choice I regret_ , he added silently, knowing better than to say it aloud.

It was his last night alive – was it that bad that he just wanted to forget everything for a while?

* * *

Levi had the reputation of being cold, crude and harsh, not giving a shit about authority and even less about most people. For the most part Eren agreed; Levi was standoffish, he was crude at times and harsh. He _did_ give a shit about Erwin's authority, though, and he _did_ care about people – he just had his own way of showing it.

What most people didn't know – and Eren was willing to bet he was actually one of the very few privileged to know this – was that Levi could be, not tender exactly, but close to it. Whenever the brunette shared the bed with the dark haired man, the sharp edges were smoothed down, leaving a softer Levi behind. He would never lose his crudeness, but there was something about the way he touched Eren, the way that his fingers glided and danced over skin, that made Eren realise that he was seeing a different side of Levi, a side that not many people were allowed to see.

It was one of the few things Eren treasured in his life.

"Did they give you time to decently clean?" Levi inquired suspiciously, eyeing Eren's shirt warily.

Eren snorted, reaching out to tug Levi's shirt off, folding it neatly. "Believe it or not, but that is actually the only thing they let me do decently. I'm guessing they were afraid I would stink the whole place up with my titan filth," he sneered, throwing himself backwards on his bed as Levi crept closer, settling between his spread legs.

"At least they understand the point of hygiene," Levi muttered darkly, tugging at Eren's shirt. "That's more than I gave them credit for, judging by the state of their rooms."

"Well, they don't have your standards of cleaning," Eren pointed out sweetly and then his stomach rolled unpleasantly as the older man shoved up his shirt, exposing his belly. "Eh, I know it's not – I can leave the shirt on. Doesn't matter."

He received an unimpressed look and an irritated cluck of a tongue. "Don't be an idiot, Eren," Levi sighed and with a final rough tug, the shirt flew off and he folded it neatly, placing it on top of his own. Steel grey eyes glided slowly from a firm chest to a protruding stomach and then to Eren's trousers, as if nothing was out of place. "You're still you," Levi stated simply and then muttered something decidedly unfriendly about the tight, white trousers that were part of their standard uniform.

Eren stifled a grin and just like that, it felt like they were in Levi's private rooms, stealing some hours before Eren had to go to his own room. Somehow they managed to get rid of their clothing with minimal cursing and Levi only grimaced slightly when he realised that in the absence of decent lubrication they would have to make do with spit.

Eren wondered whether the man had been a bit desensitised after many months of them fucking each other or whether Levi's minimal protest to the absence of decent lubrication had to do with the fact that it was their last night together.

Before the dark thoughts could settle, Eren made use of Levi's momentary distraction as he tried to figure out how to prepare the younger man with only spit as their aid and flipped them over, so that Levi landed on the bed.

Instantly two hands shot out, grabbing his hips tightly as a growl of annoyance caused Levi's chest to vibrate underneath Eren's touch; his fingers gliding over well-defined muscles.

"The hell, Eren?" Levi nearly snarled, clearly not happy with having the control been taking away from him.

Eren smirked and sat up; his arse resting on Levi's hips. Steadfastly ignoring the grotesque bulge that was his stomach, he said with a teasing lilt in his voice, "I'm impatient."

The older man snorted and rolled his eyes. "No shit, as if I don't …" He cut himself off with a sharp inhale and his eyes darkened visibly as he watched enraptured how Eren stuck three fingers in his mouth and sucked on them, coating them with his spit liberally.

"That's disgusting," Levi remarked, but he sounded distracted and his hands tightened again around Eren's hips when the younger man removed his fingers from his mouth with a sharp 'pop'; a thin string of saliva connecting his fingers and mouth.

"While I heal quickly, I still don't prefer getting fucked dry," Eren retorted snarky, but it was underlined with breathlessness as he leant forwards a bit so that he could get his hand behind him.

"Don't fall off the bed," Levi warned him with a huff, but his eyes were drawn to Eren's arm.

Eren rolled his eyes, but didn't deign it worthy of a reply. Instead he focused on preparing himself, hurryingly adding one finger after the other, ignoring the sharp burning sensation as his muscles protested. He bit back a moan when the top of his index finger brushed against a sensitive spot and by the time he deemed himself prepared enough, he was panting obnoxiously loud; his skin too warm and his shoulder muscles protesting against the odd way he had positioned his arm.

"Liked the show?" he smirked and raised an eyebrow when he met burning silver.

"I've seen better," Levi replied dismissively, but when he shifted his hips a fraction, Eren found that his lower body contradicted his flippant remark and the brunette smiled sharply.

"Is that a challenge?" Eren questioned amused and reached behind him, grabbing hold of Levi.

The dark haired man choked and slammed his head back into the mattress when Eren lowered himself on him, canting his hips and sinking down slowly; a whimper escaping him at the overwhelming sensation of feeling Levi in him. He paused, blinking rapidly as he tried to get used to the feeling of fullness after more than a month of not having any real intimate contact.

As soon as he relaxed more, he started to move slowly; the muscles in his thighs tensing up as they supported him.

"Fuck," Levi gritted out and his hands seemed glued to Eren's hips, helping him move up and down.

"That's the plan, yeah," Eren smirked and then a moan slipped out when Levi's hips bucked, grinding against his.

After that, they didn't waste words anymore. Calloused fingers traced a map over sweaty, hot skin; lingering near the bulging belly until tanned hands roughly shoved them lower. Pale lips met red ones in a deep kiss and tongues slipped out to play with each other, tips pressing together. Hips rolling against each other; muscles clenching and tensing up, their skin a mess of sticky heat.

The only sounds were ragged breathing, skin meeting each other and the creaking of the mattress; an occasional whimper or moan filling the tense silence.

Soon – all too soon – it was over, blinding white overtaking Eren's vision and he practically fell next to the dark haired man on the narrow bed as his lungs didn't seem capable of getting enough oxygen; his heart thundering loudly in his ears.

This time Levi didn't immediately get up to retrieve something to clean the mess that they had become. This time he lingered next to Eren; his breathing in sync with the brunette's, eyes closed.

Eren closed his eyes too and refused to think of what that meant.

It would all be over soon anyway.

* * *

"… ke up! Er … Wake up!"

Too many mornings of getting doused with cold water after hearing those words made Eren shot up and he blinked, holding his head in his hands, feeling disorientated; the spot next to him colder than he had expected. The cell was dark and it took him a few seconds before he realised that Mikasa and Armin were standing in front of the bars; their faces nearly hidden in the hoods of their cloaks.

"Mikasa, Armin, what the hell are you two doing here?" he hissed; his voice a bit rusty. A sudden rush of fear squeezed his heart together. Was it already morning? Were they about to take him outside?

The door of his cell suddenly swung open and Mikasa rushed to him, shoving a cloak into his chest.

"The fuck, Mikasa?" he asked bewildered. Why the hell would he need a cloak to be executed?

"Get up, Eren, we need to leave now!" she hissed and pulled him up, her whole body tense. "We'll explain on the way, just get the fuck up now!"

"Okay, okay!" he groused and swung the cloak around him, stuffing his feet hastily into his discarded shoes.

There were no guards stationed at entrance of the dungeon and that was Eren's first clue that something entirely else was going on here.

"Armin?" he whispered as they lingered in the entrance for a while before Mikasa nodded decisively and led them into the corridor leading to the exit.

Through the windows he saw that it was still night; in fact Eren thought he hadn't been asleep for that long judging by the darkness and the stars dotting the night sky.

What the …

Crystal blue eyes looked at him determined. "If you think we would really let you be executed, you don't know us well," he murmured as they hurried past the remaining empty cells.

Eren abruptly halted, ignoring Mikasa's annoyed hiss. "I'm not going to let you fuck up your careers by breaking me out," he snarled quietly, taking a step back.

Like hell would he go along with this! He wasn't going to let them fuck up their lives just so he could live. They still had their lives – why the hell were they so willing to screw that up for him?

He grimaced when Mikasa clamped her hands down on his arms, her nails burrowing in his skin. Her eyes glittered brightly as she whispered sharply, "Eren, don't be fucking stupid! Like hell am I going to let you die! Don't worry; we'll be fine."

Eren stubbornly refused to budge. He crossed his arms – ignoring how her grip tightened – and said angrily, "Oh yeah? Breaking out someone on death row is not something that will go unnoticed! They are going to know who helped me break out, Mikasa. They are stupid, but not that stupid."

Armin stepped forwards, raising his hands. "Eren, do you trust us?"

Conflicting emotions warred in him and Eren admitted grudgingly, "Of course I do, you know that."

"Then trust that we know what we're doing," Armin murmured soothingly.

Eren's gaze slipped from Mikasa to Armin and back before he sighed, relaxing his aggressive posture. "What's the plan?" he asked softly, hoping to whatever was up there that he wasn't about to regret his decision.

He wasn't exactly known for making the best decisions.

* * *

"Even you, Krista?" Eren muttered disbelievingly when they arrived at the stables located right behind the dungeons.

A sharp smile was his response and she shrugged; her long gown rustling in the wind. "The Court and I have a lot of disagreements – your fate is one of them." She looked around warily and pointed to a saddled horse waiting a few feet to the right. "Take that one; I've put enough food in the bag to last you for a while. Don't worry about the gates; I've handled that problem."

Mikasa tugged at his sleeve and he turned around to face her. "You remember the small village that we discovered three months ago during that mission with the four titans?"

He nodded warily.

"Go there. The houses there are spread out far enough that you won't be bothered and there's a wood nearby so you can find food there."

It was madness, this plan. There was no way this was going to end well. Armin had explained the plan to him on their way out. In the cover of the night he would have to rush out of the walls, needing to be out of the walls before the sun rose. As soon as he was inside the forest closest to the walls, he could slow down, but he had to keep going. The village Mikasa was referring to was built quite far away from the walls; it would take him nearly a week to get there if he travelled for most of the day.

His friends couldn't join him past the wall of the inner city; they had alibis, but it was important that they were in bed by the time it was discovered that Eren was gone.

When Eren had raised his doubts about the plan, asking how they would explain the cell being open, Mikasa had reassured him that someone else had taken care of that. Her dark look had been significant enough that Eren hadn't pressed further.

He shouldn't go through with this. There was no way this was going to end well, for either of them.

"I know it'll be a while, Eren," Krista murmured, looking apologetically. "But I swear that I will reform the Court soon. When that happens, you can come back."

 _If_ that happened, was more like it, Eren amended darkly. There was no guarantee that Krista would succeed in reforming the Court. Where did that leave him? Basically a prisoner in a tiny village, his life completely changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

This was not the future he had envisioned when he had started his training.

A slight twinge in his side made him grimace. "What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked, gesturing helplessly at his stomach.

Nausea made his stomach roll as he realised that he would be on his own at the end; nobody would be there to help him with this thing. How was it even going to get out?

Mikasa bit her lip; her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Hange said that – that you'd most likely have to cut it out as … as soon as the contractions start," she answered, sounding a bit faint.

"Wonderful," Eren replied sarcastically; bile working its way up.

"It will be all right, Eren," Krista reassured him. "I'm sorry, but you really have to go now if you want to make it out of the walls on time."

His limbs heavy, stomach churning, he made his way to the horse and saddled up, having a bit of trouble thanks to the added weight in the front.

Light eyes, the colour of a blade, shot through his mind when he gripped the reins. "Where is …" He cut himself off abruptly, not sure whether he really wanted to know the answer.

"Eren?" Armin cocked his head.

"No, never mind." Eren took a deep breath and gave them a thin smile. "Thank you, guys. For everything."

Then he urged the horse into gallop, disappearing into the town.

Leaving his old life behind.

* * *

He started talking to it. He hadn't, at first. He had been content to ignore it in the beginning, pretend nothing was wrong with him.

But his stomach kept growing each day and the quiet, the solitude surrounding him were slowly driving him insane. The houses in the village he was living in now were so far apart that he might as well be living alone. None of the vendors of the walls visited this town; if one wanted food, they had to hunt and grow it on their own.

The house was small, practically hidden by the large trees surrounding it. It had a small bathroom, big enough for toilet, a sink and a bathtub; if he sat on the toilet and turned to the left, he could place his legs in the tub and if he turned to the other side and leant a bit forwards, he could reach the sink. His bedroom existed out of one window, a wardrobe that had seen better days and a narrow bed with a single, thin sheet and a flat pillow. The kitchen was bigger, obviously intended as a space to spend the majority of the time in with a big fireplace. The dingy basement was cold enough to store meat in and the living room had a single couch and a tall bookcase with some old books left behind.

Whoever had left this place behind in a hurry – and judging by the amount of dirt he had been greeted with when he entered for the first time it had been a while since the house had last been inhabited – had left the majority of his clothes behind and they were big enough that Eren was able to use them. After giving them a thorough soaking naturally.

The majority of his days was spent searching for food: hunting down small animals for meat and their pelts for when winter would come; searching for berries and finding out which vegetables he could grow in the small backyard behind the house with the seeds one of his friends had put in his bag. Cleaning was part of his days as well; after all those years of living in clean quarters thanks to Levi's insistence, Eren's skin positively crawled at the thought of living in grimy, dust covered rooms.

Levi would be so proud if he could see with how much vigour Eren attacked the dirty rooms.

In all those weeks of living in the house, however, he hadn't encountered one neighbour at all and soon he found himself bored out of his mind, the desire to talk to someone growing steadily.

And then one day – he had been living in the house for a month – he found himself talking to it, caught himself telling stories about the pranks he had pulled when he was a kid; the arguments he had got into with Jean. The fact that he missed his friends dearly; missed Armin's laugh and Mikasa's gentle presence. Hell, he even missed her fussing, found himself longing for it at times.

Anything just to remind himself that he wasn't truly alone.

The first time he caught himself talking to it, he had abruptly stopped cleaning the counter and had stared in the distance for a while; the rushing of his blood too loud in his ears. He had remained silent for the rest of the day; a disconcerting feeling falling over him.

He had resolved not to think about it, had refused to consider what talking to it meant.

Then he woke up suddenly on a late August night, wondering what the hell had shaken him from his sleep. The odd, fluttery sensation in his stomach was his answer and he had buried his face into his pillow, ignoring the fluttery movements that popped up a few more times before it disappeared again.

But as more days passed, as his stomach grew bigger and heavier, as the fluttery movements became firm kicks and pushes against his vulnerable organs, Eren came to realise that ignoring it would no longer work.

"This is so fucked up," Eren sighed, watching wearily how a small foot – or wait, maybe that was a fist – pressed back against his thumb. It had been raining all day and he was spending it lounging on the couch, trying to figure out just what the hell he was going to do.

His old clothes no longer fit him; his belly having become too big for the material to wear them comfortably. He could no longer ignore it; soon it was going to be born and what was he going to do then? Dump it somewhere? Travel deeper into the village and drop it in front of a house?

No matter how much he hated the situation he was in, he knew that his conscience wouldn't let him abandon the tiny thing growing inside of him.

If he couldn't abandon it, what was there left to do? If he kept it and he could return to the walls one day – what would happen then?

How would _he_ react?

"Fuck," he muttered, dropping his head on the back of the couch, laying an arm over his face.

If his cheeks felt wet a little while later, well, he was good at ignoring things.

* * *

'It' turned out to be a boy. A small, fragile little thing with a tuft of black hair and dark blue eyes. Eren remembered his mother once saying that the eyes of a baby changed colour after a few days. He caught himself wondering whether the boy would have his eyes or Levi's.

The baby boy – red, filthy, covered with fluids that Eren didn't even want to think about – squirmed and wailed sharply, scrunching up his already wrinkled face.

Shaking, blood covered hands lowered the baby on the bed and his vision blurred, agonising pain radiating from his stomach to the rest of his body. The contractions had started hours ago and when they were barely five minutes apart, he had started to cut his stomach open, a piece of wood clenched between his teeth to muffle the sound of his screams, as he cut through skin, muscles and tissue; digging around, feeling the slickness of his organs as he cut open the womb, fighting to stay conscious. He had lost his grip on the knife several times; his skin constantly trying to knit itself back together as he struggled to get it out of him as soon as possible.

Nearly his entire bed was coloured red with his own blood and he dragged himself up, leaning heavily against the wall as his stomach slowly healed, his body knitting itself back together; a strange hollow sensation where his stomach was supposed to be.

It was over now.

It was no longer inside of him.

He was done.

A low whine escaped the boy and Eren forced himself to open his eyes, staring dazedly at the squirming baby next to him.

"I suppose you're not bad," he muttered exhausted and the corners of his lips twitched weakly as an old memory resurfaced; his heart clenching. "Yeah, not bad."

* * *

Weird didn't even start to describe Eren's life now that the baby was born. He didn't even have the faintest clue as to what the fuck he was supposed to do now with the squirming, wailing thing. Right after placing the baby on the bed after he had finished cutting it out of him, he had lost consciousness; the hours of blinding and mind numbing pain catching up to him. It was a miracle the boy hadn't fallen off the bed by the time Eren groggily woke up again.

He had thrown the bloodied sheets away; there was no saving those and he had thought he would be sick if he had to look at them a minute longer. He had cleaned himself and the baby in the sink, watching blankly how mucus and blood peeled off the baby's skin until only smooth paleness was left behind. The boy had been oddly silent the entire time, as if he had sensed that Eren wasn't completely there.

Next he had clumsily fashioned some baby clothes out of the pile he had stuffed in the wardrobe and had cut some cloth diapers out of some old but clean towels. It was only when the boy had been completely dressed for the first time that he opened his mouth and wailed loudly, the sound piercing through Eren's skull until he realised that the baby was probably hungry.

By a stroke of luck he had discovered two cows aimlessly wandering around near the edge of the forest a month ago and he had succeeded in coaxing them into the patch of fenced off land right behind his garden. Remembering that babies needed milk, he had poured some milk in a bottle and put that in a pan of water on the stove in order to warm it up.

It was when he was holding the bottle against the tiny, rose bud like mouth, watching how the baby hungrily and loudly sucked from the rubber nipple – Eren still didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed at having found the rubber nipples in his bag – that he realised that he had absolutely no clue where to go from here.

The baby was here now; no longer contained and hidden in his stomach. What was he going to do now? He could still leave it behind at some doorstep, he supposed. It wasn't like anyone would know where the baby came from and he lived far enough not to be bothered by any questions that would arise. It wasn't like he had been looking forward to the baby either; he had considered it a parasite to be honest and he should be relieved now that it was finally out of him. However …

Days blended seamlessly together and Eren found his routine of the past few months being broken by the new addition in the household. He didn't have time anymore to leisurely clean or tend to his garden or even walk around in the woods. Instead he had to take care of a baby he had never envisioned he would have: he had to feed it warm milk multiple times a day, taking care not to make it too hot and to let the baby burp after each meal; he had to change his diapers – far too much for his liking; how the hell was the baby capable of producing so much shit? – and change his clothes; had to wash him while making sure he didn't slip and drown.

He could handle the feeding and the changing diapers part. He had a hell of a lot more trouble dealing with the baby's crying. At first he barely touched the baby; only picking him up when he needed to be fed or cleaned. Holding the baby against his chest felt weird, making his skin almost crawl as he watched how small hands gripped his shirt tightly as the baby drank his milk; dark green grey eyes looking solemnly back at him. It made his stomach churn and he was always quick to place the baby back on the bed once he had burped.

Annoyingly, the baby wanted to be held; wanted to be cuddled, wanted his attention and for the first few weeks Eren could barely handle looking at the kid, only making sure that the baby was clean and wouldn't starve. He had tried to ignore the crying, even going outside when the wailing became particularly strong.

For the first few weeks he managed to ignore most of the crying. But then one day there was a change in the crying, a hitch that hadn't been there before and it made Eren freeze in his task of cutting potatoes for his dinner. The crying lowered in volume, an occasional hiccup coming through, but Eren was struck by the way it sounded, becoming cold over his whole body as he recognised the tone of the crying. He had heard children crying like that before, back in the walls before he had been old enough to start his training.

It was the pitiful sound of a child who had been abandoned, who felt alone, cast aside.

Before he realised what he was doing, he was standing in front of the baby boy, who whimpered and at seeing Eren frozen held out his arms, waving them desperately through the air as he whined lowly; his eyes begging for the older man to pick him up, to hold him close.

To show him the love he was unconsciously craving.

"I'm sorry," Eren whispered and slowly sank down, his knees hitting the wooden floor, as he grabbed the baby from the couch and held him against his chest, small fists gripping his shirt desperately as the baby tilted his face towards him, still crying softly. "I'm so sorry that you had to be stuck with me," he murmured, closing his eyes in shame.

He couldn't go on like this; _they_ couldn't go on like this.

"I promise it will get better," he muttered, stroking the baby's cheek with a trembling finger; his heart squeezing together with something he wasn't brave enough yet to analyse. "I swear I'll get better. I don't know when, but I promise … I'm going to try."

The baby gurgled, calming down now that he wasn't being shunned anymore. The tears eventually stopped and the cries softened into a hushed whimpering. Eren felt a lump in his throat. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, the soft scent of the baby's head flooding his senses.

Things changed after that day. For good.

* * *

If he gathered the crops now, he would be finished with it before the clouds would break. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled and he grimaced, nodding. Yeah, he would have to hurry, it seemed.

Small footsteps pitter-pattered over the path, nearing him and he straightened up.

"Papa?"

He turned around curiously. "What, Derren?"

His four year old son – fuck, it still sounded so odd when he thought about it – bit his lip; his green eyes with grey specks glinting. "Someone is coming here," he answered hushed; eyes wide as he turned his head. He was still a frail thing and oddly clumsy, but in all those years Eren hadn't discovered anything close to a titan in the boy.

It appeared that the Court had been wrong about the baby – imagine that.

"Who is coming?" he inquired, quirking an eyebrow. They hadn't had a visitor since Mikasa and Armin stopped by three months ago on their way back from a mission close by. Derren had soaked up their attention and small trinkets in the form of gifts like a sponge like he always did, begging them to come again soon.

The mysterious visitor couldn't be them – Eren would have heard Derren squealing if that had been the case.

"I know you've been living in this godforsaken hole practically on your own, but really, brat, locks can be very useful," a painfully familiar voice piped up from the direction of the house and Eren nearly strained a muscle when he whipped his head around.

He took a step forwards, his gaze drinking in the sight of the dark haired man leaning against the doorframe, scowling.

"Levi? What – what are you doing here?" Eren asked; his voice higher pitched than it had been in years, shock making him feel faint.

He hadn't seen the man in nearly five years; hadn't even heard anything about him as Mikasa and Armin remained quiet and Eren didn't feel brave enough to ask.

"Got whacked to the ground one time too many." Levi shrugged and only now took Eren notice of the bandage wrapped around Levi's left leg.

Grey eyes slowly wandered across the garden before they fell on Derren, who blinked and cocked his head. "They were gracious enough to let me retire." A sneer coloured his voice and he limped forwards, approaching Eren slowly.

There were barely a few inches left between them when Levi halted and continued, "I figured it was time to find a real home. I've been living in offices for way too long."

"No instructing the new recruits?" Eren asked lightly, unconsciously taking a step closer. "Who will teach them the proper way to clean then?"

"The shits can figure it out on their own," Levi snorted and the corners of his mouth twitched.

A chuckle escaped the brunette before he could stop himself and he placed a hand on Derren's shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Levi, this is Derren," he paused. "My son. Derren, this is Captain Levi."

"Not a captain anymore," Levi snorted again while Derren exclaimed, "Papa told me a lot about you!"

Eren's cheeks heated up when grey eyes landed on him; a speculating look crossing them. "Is that so?" Levi drawled, sounding amused. "Well, why don't you tell me what your papa said?"

He didn't have to say that twice. Derren immediately launched into his story, gesturing wildly with his arms whenever he wanted to stress something.

They made an odd picture, Eren realised. He had never expected to see Levi again, hadn't assumed there was even a small chance of the man popping up one day, back into his life. Or well, their lives.

But he was here now to stay and Eren found that he didn't mind that prospect.

It wasn't what he had envisioned for himself, but there were worse ways to live his life, he supposed. He had more than he ever thought he would have now; that would have to be enough.

He had said goodbye to his old life a long time ago – now it was time to fully embrace his new life.

Silver met green and Eren smiled.

Life was good.

* * *

 **AN2: Keeping Eren and Levi in character as much as possible with this particular theme was quite difficult - more difficult than I anticipated - but I hope I didn't screw up too much *sweatdrops***

 **Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.**

 **Cuddles**

 **Melissa**

 **P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.**


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